No significant main effect for the factor situation was yielded indicating that the importance of motives was comparable for private and work-related situations, F(1, 133) = 2.94, p = 0.09, P2 = 0.02. Eavesdropping in public settings reveals that people devote a substantial part of their conversations to gossip (e.g., Levin and Arluke, 1985; Dunbar et al., 1997). To fill this void, there is nothing else he can find worth doing apart from yapping and gossiping about other people with the ultimate aim of gaining favours from those he is spreading gossip to. All factor loadings were significant (p < 0.001). The exchanged information enables individuals to get a map of their social environment and their position within that social environment (Suls, 1977; Baumeister et al., 2004; Foster, 2004; De Backer et al., 2007; Sommerfeld et al., 2007; Martinescu et al., 2014). Research on gossip: taxonomy, methods, and future directions. People who heard either positive or negative gossip about themselves showed more activity in the prefrontal cortex of their brains, which helps people navigate complex social behaviors. Tell me the gossip: the self-evaluative function of receiving gossip about others. Cyberbullying: the new face of workplace bullying? Psychol. Soc. 10, 400421. We tend to think of gossip as a negative behavior when, for instance, we tattle on someone or share information behind someone elses back that may show them in a bad light. Exploring Statistical Analysis Using JASP: Frequentist and Bayesian Approaches. compassionate. As outlined earlier, gossip appears to be a painless-and-quick mean to get information about the social surrounding and oneself; either by explicitly using gossip to validate and gather information or by trying to foster relationships in order to have an audience to act. Regina George is the queen bee, Karen Smith is the beautiful airhead and Gretchen Wieners is Toaster Strudel royalty. Sometimes jealous gossip stems from wanting to be right, or best, or number one. Using gossip to build relationships was more often rated as relevant by individuals scoring higher on narcissism than by those scoring lower on narcissism both in work (p < 0.001) and private (p = 0.007) settings. Cost them a fortune!. You feel violated and resentful. All Rights Reserved. A less benign form of gossip is when people discuss information. 1. 8, 231246. Taken together, the preliminary scale consists of 18 items tapping into six different motives, namely information gathering (IG), information validation (IV), relationship building (RB), protection (P), social enjoyment (SE), and negative influence (NI; see Figure 1). Gossiping about deviance: evidence that deviance spurs the gossip that builds bonds. However, the latter is rather rare, because the INTP can actually come up with all sorts of extraordinary talents. Consistent with Beersma and Van Kleef (2012), we asked the participants to think about a past situation when they had a conversation with someone about an absent person. Manag. Psychol. Excluding these participants from analysis did not change the results. It can be positive or neutral.. Decoding the narcissismpopularity link at zero acquaintance. Participants have to consult their autobiographical memory to identify relevant behavioral events, and, in addition, remember in detail the reasons for this behavior (e.g., Sudman et al., 1996). Read on to learn the top 10 types of gossip. Acad. 2023 LoveToKnow Media. A man who spends most of his time gossiping about other people and even his friends usually has a general feeling of inadequacy in his own sphere of life. Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: a dynamic self-regulatory processing model. This holds true in two fundamental domains of life, namely the private and the work context. The effects of truth teller gossip are equally harmful: damaged reputations. Personal. Second, to examine whether the bad reputation of gossip is justified or not, we explore the role of the dark personality traits in gossip motivation. First, share personal requests. According to God, a lot. This motivation was apparent in the private setting as well as in the work setting suggesting that it might play a role in amicable relationship building as well as professional networking. doi: 10.1002/9781118001868.ch15, Keltner, D., Van Kleef, G. A., Chen, S., and Kraus, M. W. (2008). They believe strongly in not judging a book by its cover and prefer to keep an open mind when going into new situations and meeting new people. Six distinct motives were identified that underlie gossip behavior: information validation, information gathering, relationship building, protection, social enjoyment, and negative influence. IE 11 is not supported. Biblically, a gossip is defined as "a tale-bearer, a whisperer, a secret slanderer." Anytime we say anything about someone privately that we wouldn't say publicly, it's gossip. Its harmful because without firsthand knowledge, those who are in a position to intervene in dangerous or destructive situations are unable to do so in a timely manner. Soc. doi: 10.1007/s12110-007-9023-z, Deutchman, P., and Sullivan, J. Its more difficult for real people to grow and change their personality traits (Wouldnt it be nice if we could resolve our biggest personality flaws in a few pages?). Manag. Contrary to conventional wisdom, gossip may not be as negative as we tend to think. Research demonstrates that gossip is emotionally rewarding. Soc. In line with that notion, research shows that individuals who show a high frequency of negative gossip are rated as highly dislikable (Farley, 2011). The Bless Your Heart gossip shares juicy pieces of information, but tags on the line, bless his/her heart as a way of appearing compassionate and caring, when, in fact, they are neither compassionate nor caring. 15. 34, 10041017. doi: 10.1037/1089-2680.8.2.111, Beersma, B., and Van Kleef, G. A. Additionally, as people with dark personalities are not concerned with others' welfare, they probably use gossip less often to protect other individuals or their group from harm (but see Lyons and Hughes, 2015). Pers. Soc. But researchers often define it more broadly: as talking about people who arent present, says Megan Robbins, an assistant professor of psychology at The University of California, Riverside. Br. While listening to patients, psychologists must also guide the therapy process with their own questions. Thus, gossip keeps people from acting against the good of the group and fosters cooperation. 10 Reasons God Might Not Be Blessing Your Life, Inspiring Mother Breaks Down after Earning Golden Buzzer with Celine Dion Hit, 7 Things that Will Keep Me from Coming Back to Your Church, 6 Truths about Jesus Coming into the World, 9 Christians You Don't Want to Sit Beside on Sunday Morning, 10 Things You Should Know about the Intermediate State of Death, 'You Raise Me Up' Duet Earns A Standing Ovation From The Judges. Different researchers then add a range of stipulations, such as: The conversation takes place in private. "Mean Girls" is arguably one of the most quotable comedies of all time, with the most iconic characters of all time. The mean values for narcissism and Machiavellianism are comparable to previous research whereas the mean value for psychopathy is slightly lower in the present study than in previous research (Kfner et al., 2014). Spontaneous "let's hang out" invitations. Though her thoughts and feelings are as impenetrable as the imposing, decaying house in . The positive BF10s indicate that the data are more likely under the model assuming associations between the three personality traits and the respective gossip motive than under the model assuming no association. Pum die Person, mit der ich gesprochen habe, vor dem Verhalten der abwesenden Person zu warnen. A. The study also found that the caudate nucleus, a reward center in the brain, was activated in response to negative gossip about celebrities; subjects seemed to be amused or entertained by salacious celebrity scandals. IGum Informationen ber die abwesende Person zu sammeln. They also note that gossip tends to be about acquaintances more than celebrities, and typically involves an exchange of social information rather than thoughts about one's physical appearance or achievements. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.12.026. Suls, J. M. (1977). Gossip is an ubiquitous phenomenon. The standardized factor loadings for the six-factor model are presented separately in Figure 1 for both settings. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2014.09.016, Bosson, J. K., Johnson, A. Influence tactics and objectives in upward, downward, and lateral influence attempts. 7 Ticking Time Bombs That Destroy Loving Relationships, An Addiction Myth That Needs to Be Revisited, 5 Spiritual Practices That Increase Well-Being. Anyone whos been around religious people has likely encountered this type of gossip. J. Hum. (2012). characteristics and dynamics of male gossip. Instead of picking fleas and dirt off one another to bond, Ludden explains, we now talk, which is where gossip comes in, because chit-chat is mostly talking about other people and conveying social information., Gossiping, Dunbars work argues, gives humans the ability to spread valuable information to very large social networks. 67, 1116. Regression analysis with motives as dependent variables and dark triad personality traits as independent variables (N = 134). First, gossip is an efficient means of gathering and disseminating information (Foster, 2004). 52, 482486. 18, 334354. doi: 10.1177/1948550611405073, Beersma, B., and Van Kleef, G. A. The motive to warn and protect a conversational partner appears to be of similar importance as relationship building and enjoyment. Psychol. People want to be seen as being in the know when it comes to the latest gossip about others. The aims of the present study are 2-fold. As individuals scoring high on narcissism are characterized by a grandiose (and sometimes vulnerable) self-concept that causes them to search for external appreciation (Morf and Rhodewalt, 2001; Jones and Paulhus, 2011; Back et al., 2013), one might speculate that gossip is a low risk method to gain information about the self. When these traits are negative and hold a character back from their goal, theyre called character flaws. Gossip. Did you hear how much they paid for it? (2014). To arrive at this conclusion, researchers at the University of California Riverside analyzed daily conversations of 467 people over a multi-day period using an Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR, for short). 8. Hum. 99, 122126. Reputation, gossip, and human cooperation. Psychol. Part II: Example applications with JASP. In addition, Buffardi and Campbell (2008) showed that individuals scoring high on narcissism are more active on social networking sites such as Facebook (see also e.g., Carpenter, 2012). In total, 40 employees from different companies in Germany were addressed. Therefore, simply gathering and validating social information might be another salient reason for dark personalities to gossip. Firstly, it is a well-known fact that Irish people love to laugh and, by that . It works like this: Susans a super star with her clients. If we do vent to people, lets be sure we dont taint another persons reputation in a way that cant be recovered. A competitive situation might elicit motives that serve the individual more easily and hazards negative consequences for others. Furthermore, the present study took the challenge of assessing gossip motivation and the dark triad personality traits in a non-student sample. 4. I just hope her new job doesnt affect her family. Dif. What makes the prayer request gossip so insidious is that gossip is couched in spiritual sounding words like, we all need to pray for him.. 74, 275279. I dont want to gossip to the Pastor. It never occurred to any of them they were gossiping to everyone but the Pastor! The dark triad personality traits were entered as independent variables and motives as dependent variables. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.11.011, Carter, G. L., Montanaro, Z., Linney, C., and Campbell, A. C. (2015). Others dont tend to trust bad gossipers with information when they have it. Thus, trait psychology rests on the idea that people differ from . Unlike Beersma and Van Kleef (2012), we asked the participants to think about a situation in a work setting as well as in a private context. These traits may include: People are generally not all good or all bad, or all positive or all negative. A bias for social information in human cultural transmission. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12018, Grosser, T. J., Lopez-Kidwell, V., and Labianca, G. (2010). Gossiping just for fun and to pass time appears to be as important as relationship building and protecting others from harm. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12169, Waddington, K. (2005). Other people's guilt is a manipulator's best friend. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-23550-3, Baughman, H. M., Dearing, S., Giammarco, E., and Vernon, P. A. In a first step, the BF10s of the models with narcissism, Machiavelliansim, and psychopathy as independent variables and the respective gossip motive as dependent variable were of interest (see Table 2; A: BF10). Baumeister, R. F. (1998). I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble. (Psalm 142:1-2) The need to get something off our chest while avoiding slander and gossip can be accomplished by pouring out our complaints to God, before we pour out our complaints to people. Bull. The three items were chosen based on consideration about the content and wording as well as on factor loadings obtained through a pre-study (N = 45). Spreading tales about a coworkers sex life, criminal background, suspected company policy infractions, or medical problems are all examples of harmful workplace gossip. The results are displayed in Table 2. 10. Exp. This indicates that that the data are 4.48 1082 times more likely under the model that assumes differences between motives than under the model that assumes no such differences. Pers. More specifically, respondents may deliberately ignore information that has already been provided in response to previous question (Schwarz and Bless, 1991; Schwarz et al., 1991; Schwarz, 1999). doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1977.tb01812.x, Swann, W. B., Stephenson, B., and Pittman, T. S. (1981). Foster, E. K. (2004). The repeated ANOVA was also calculated including gender as a between subject factor. Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. That is, individuals scoring high on the dark triad traits gossip as often as individuals scoring low on the dark triad traits in order to protect somebody. The sensitive child feels everything. The Motives to Gossip Questionnaire asks participants to rate their reasons for gossip in a specific situation. But researchers often define it more broadly: as "talking about. When the dark ones gain power: perceived position power strengthens the effect of supervisor Machiavellianism on abusive supervision in work teams. Peters, K., and Kashima, Y. Not one person with firsthand knowledge ever contacted my husband. The motivational pattern was highly similar between private and work context. However, jobs, workplaces, and organizations are highly different in terms of normative expectations and competitiveness. Another reason to exchange information about a third person was to build trust to one's gossip partner. New research published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science analyzed thousands of daily conversations to better understand the true nature of gossip. Chuck's unhealthy ESTP personality traits can often get him into trouble. The vulnerable (covert) subtype is a less studied type of narcissism that presents with hypersensitivity, defensiveness, and even shyness. 74:1197. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.74.5.1197, Peng, X., Li, Y., Wang, P., Mo, L., and Chen, Q. Gossiping in order to protect a gossip partner might well go hand in hand with the intention to damage the reputation of the gossip target. Lying is toxic since it is self-defeating. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2014.06.038, Jonason, P. K., and Schmitt, D. P. (2012). (2009). doi: 10.1016/j.socnet.2012.07.002, Ellwardt, L., Wittek, R., and Wielers, R. (2012c). However, this difference between work and private setting has to be interpreted with care as different F-test corrections come to different results and the Bayes analyses show that the data get more support when including only motive as predictor in the model. For the work-related situation the term private (privat) was replaced with work-related (beruflich). In-depth interviews might uncover additional motives to exchange information about others. Aggress. Keywords: gossip, gossip motives, situation, dark triad, narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, Citation: Hartung F-M, Krohn C and Pirschtat M (2019) Better Than Its Reputation? When we gossipno matter what the motivation or justificationwe behave just like the unbelieving world. Finally, it has been suggested that gossip has an entertainment function providing recreational value and considerable stimulation for very little costs (Foster, 2004; Peng et al., 2015). and Using diaries to explore the characteristics of work-related gossip: methodological considerations from exploratory multimethod research. Thus, it appears that people, regardless of being on the dark side of personality or on bright side, mainly use gossip to tune their picture of other humans and themselves. Neuroticism is a trait where individuals are prone to negative thoughts such as anxiety, anger, envy, guilt and so on. In order to get more insight into our results, we additionally conducted a Bayesian Repeated ANOVA and Bayesian Regression Analyses. revels in making others look bad when we feel like their life is better than ours. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069996, Harvey, M. G., Heames, J. T., Richey, R. G., and Leonard, N. (2006). Figure 2. doi: 10.1080/09585192.2014.985329, Lee, K., Ashton, M., Wiltshire, J., Bourdage, J., Visser, B., and Gallucci, A. The study conforms with the Declaration of Helsinki and the ethics guidelines of the German Psychological Society. Here we can assume rather strong situations. doi: 10.1016/B978-012134645-4/50027-5. Bitter-vengeful gossip usually stems from being hurt or harmed. A coworker took all the credit for a project you both worked on in a meeting with your boss. Gossip frequently involves inconsequential topics such as a coworkers new hairstyle, weight reduction, weight gain, or a recent trip to Vegas. For example, if they are talkative at home, they tend also to be talkative at work. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). In a climate of trust, people with dark personalities could continue to follow their self-beneficial agendas without being hindered. She's so fetch. The co-evolution of gossip and friendship in workplace social networks. Thus, unusual or emotional arousing gossip events might be remembered easily whereas irregular but frequent and relatively unimportant gossip events are not retrieved easily and perhaps forgotten entirely (Sudman et al., 1996; Tourangeau, 2000). IGum Ausknfte ber die abwesende Person einzuholen. Narcissism on facebook: self-promotional and anti-social behavior. Accordingly, two thirds of adult conversations in public settings involve gossip (e.g., Levin and Arluke, 1985; Dunbar et al., 1997). Gossiping is a social skill.. Second, considering that one focus of the study was the association between the gossip motives and the dark triad personality traits, the use of a short measure of the dark triad is questionable. The logician wants to stand out from the crowd. An in the know gossip loves to have the latest scoop. An alternative method might be to ask participants to provide information about their tendency to gossip for certain reasons across different situations and across time. There are other ways to do this, Im sure. This activity indicated the subjects responded to the gossip and its insight. doi: 10.1177/009102609802700410, Crothers, L. M., Lipinski, J., and Minutolo, M. C. (2009). She was speechless. J. Pers. Taken together, these studies and reviews illustrate that individuals scoring higher on the dark triad personality traits are willing to dismiss commonly accepted social norms and harm others for their own good. Manager J. Gossip in the workplace and the implications for HR management: a study of gossip and its relationship to employee cynicism. In a 2015 study published in Social Neuroscience, scientists looked at brain imaging of men and women as they heard positive and negative gossip about themselves, their best friends and celebrities. Psychol. 8, 111121. J. Pers. At the end of a grueling day, hed give me enough details to empathize, but never reveal names. Pers. Old Medication, New Use: Can Prazosin Curb Drinking? Pers. J. Exp. (2010). Inq. Rather, a single motive might serve unintentionally different social functions, presumably more than one at once. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.12.002, Privitera, C., and Campbell, M. A. J. Soc. Whats so wrong with being a truth teller gossip? Translating Questionnaires and Other Research Instruments: Problems and Solutions. doi: 10.1016/j.socnet.2011.11.003, Ellwardt, L., Steglich, C., and Wittek, R. (2012b). To gossip or not to gossip: reactions to a perceived request to gossip a qualitative study. I want to receive exclusive email updates from YourDictionary. Research on organizational features that hinder or facilitate workplace bullying suggest that organizations may vary on enabling structures and processes (e.g., perceived power imbalance, frustration), on motivating structures and processes (e.g., internal competition, reward system), and on precipitating processes (e.g., organizational changes; Salin, 2003; Crothers et al., 2009). Most people agree: Saying negative things about others is OK, but do not say anything bad about me. All humans partake in some form, despite the age-old adage, If you have nothing nice to say, dont say anything at all. Whether its workplace chatter, the sharing of family news or group texts between friends, its inevitable that everyone who talks, well, talks about other people. Gaining social information and knowledge about people surrounding us provides us with a sense of control and advantage over others (e.g., Swann et al., 1981; Fiske, 2004). Spreading rumors and gossip is one of the main ways people cut another person's status, especially among girls. Therefore, one might assume that there was no need for socially desirable responding. The way of being obsessive is mainly determined by the perfection of things. Celebrities: from teachers to friends. Participants were invited via e-mail to fill in an online questionnaire about communication at work. (2015). Here's how. As outlined earlier, this is in line with previous results from observational (i.e., eavesdropping) studies showing that the content of conversation is mainly neutral in its value and only certain parts are clearly positive or clearly negative (Levin and Arluke, 1985; Dunbar et al., 1997). Dark and immoral: the links between pathological personality features and moral values. Psychol. Here's how to get better at it. It refers to the "prohibition of telling gossip, truthful remarks about a non-present person or party.". In addition, that final version was presented to two bilingual individuals (English native speakers) to review the final version. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1948550619837000. doi: 10.1037/1089-2680.8.2.100, Dunbar, R. I., Marriott, A., and Duncan, N. D. (1997). Walter Winchell published a famous column called "On Broadway" that was filled with rumors about celebrities. Gen. Psychol. Rev. But rather than going directly to the offending party as Matthew 18 instructs, or going to a person who can help (the parent, a pastor, law enforcement), they pass on the information in hopes the right person will somehow hear the right information, and do the right thing. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12255, Yukl, G., and Falbe, C. M. (1990). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. More specifically, it is easy to imagine that individuals scoring higher on the dark triad readily use gossip to negatively influence another person's reputation (i.e., potential competitor or rival) to push through self-beneficial agendas. Assess. The dark triad and framing effects predict selfish behavior in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma. 2) Listen to what they have to say without acknowledging it. Avoider gossip is based in fear, not love. That means, when broadening the view and evaluating gossip not only with regard to social functions but also with regard the intention of the gossiper a positive impression of gossip emerges. 25, 5876. A pattern of positive behavior and attitude leads to a positive personality, marked by positive personality traits. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.09.002, Salin, D. (2003). In contrast to our expectation, we did not find any negative relationship between the dark triad and the protection motive.